Questions at 4

It's hard to believe the time has flown by, but today my boy turns 4!  

Last year several of my bloggy friends who have similar aged children had their kiddos answer a questionnaire and blogged about it, and so did we- you can find that post here.  Now that Austin is four I asked him the same set of questions.

Questions for Austin at age 4:

1. What is your favorite color? Blue
2. What is your favorite toy? Ducks and cars
3. What is your favorite fruit?  Mango
4. What is your favorite show?  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Noodles
6. What is your favorite thing to wear?  Mario shirt
7. What is your favorite game?  Super Mario Galaxy
8. What is your favorite snack?  Fruit snacks
9. What is your favorite animal?  Zebra
10. What is your favorite song?  Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
11. What is your favorite story?  High Five Magazine
12. Who is your best friend?  Redick or Mama
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Purple cereal (fruity Cheerios)
14. What do you like to do when you go outside?  Play basketball
15. What is your favorite drink?  Apple juice
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Christmas
17. What do you like to take to bed with you? Steggy (stuffed stegosaurus) and ducks 
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Eggs
19. What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?  Noodles
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Like Jake and the Neverland Pirates

Hot Dog!

We had a huge birthday bash for Austin's fourth birthday last Saturday.  His actual birthday is Jan. 22, but that is the day our stuff, and hopefully us too, rolls out.  We had quite a house full as pretty much everyone who was invited accepted the invitation and most of the parents came too.  I think everyone had in mind that we will be gone soon and wanted to spend some time with us.  Overall it went well and everyone had a good time.

I crocheted the Mickey/Minnie hats for all of the kids.  I had a lot of time during our house hunting trip as it was an 11 hour drive there and back.  However, 4 more kids RSVPed after I got home, so I had a lot of catch up crocheting, but pulled it all off.  If you are interested in the pattern, here is the link:

Source: repeatcrafterme.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I had to adapt the pattern as it was for babies.  I used a bigger crochet hook, and added a few more increases in stitches.  I used the same ear and bow pattern, just used the bigger hook.  I also ran out of time to sew the buttons on so I hot glued them and it worked pretty well.

I was a little concerned that the kids wouldn't want to eat the black frosting on the Mickey cake, but I was wrong, they were asking for the ears.  Austin asked for funfetti cake for the main cake and the cupcakes were yellow cake because one of the guests is allergic to milk.  

Austin is already telling us what he wants for his next birthday party theme.  Kind of like he keeps asking when Santa is coming again.   When we get to Colorado on our way to Wyoming we will have another small birthday celebration with Grandma and Aunt Cathy.

Thursday thoughts

Here are my thoughts on this fine Thursday:

• Only 14 more days of work provided I make it to the date that I have been thinking about taking off.  I am so ready to be home and rest and prepare for Katy's arrival. 
• In spite of the bad news I got yesterday one positive thing that came from it was I looked up my boss from the Boys & Girls Club to make sure she knew about what happened.  I haven't seen or spoken to her in all those years.  Turns out she is still in touch with the family and is planning to attend the services this weekend.  Even though she was the Director of the Club she was my age and a student at CSU, so we were also pretty close back then and hung out outside of work a lot, so it was nice to reconnect with an old friend.
• We had a book club meeting last night to wrap up our discussion of A Prayer For Owen Meany.  It's funny how your perspective of things changes as an adult.  I first read the book my senior year of high school and loved it.  This time around not so much.  It had it's funny moments, but overall I didn't care for it. 
• I'm really disliking the newer word verification to leave comments for fellow bloggers.  When I did the A-Z Challenge they strongly encouraged everyone to disable that feature, and I have to concur.  I haven't had word verification on my comments in a long time and only once have received a spam comment which I deleted, easy peasy. So come on and jump on my bandwagon and turn off your comment verification if you write a blog that I like to comment on PLEASE!
• This morning when I went to get a shirt out of the closet for Austin I couldn't help but stop and look through the new clothes for Katy.  I haven't organized her stuff yet, so I just put it in the closet, but I just love all the little bitty pink and purple clothes!
• I am ready to hit the pool tomorrow.  Last week I was having some swelling in my hands and legs and the pool took care of it, so I know it will feel good this week too. 
• Conditions for our monsoon are starting to show up.  We haven't had any rain at home yet, but there are clouds in the sky again and it has been windy which are both signs of the monsoon.  I am so ready, bring on the rain!

Thursday Thoughts

• I am so happy today is Thursday and I am READY for the weekend!  I have a lot of house cleaning on the schedule, but otherwise fun times planned.
• Saturday afternoon is my baby shower with my in town group of friends who are mostly co-workers of Dustin, spouses of his co-workers, or other Mommy friends who are in the same Mommy circle.  My friend Jess is hosting it at our house, thus the cleaning, and I'm not sure how many are actually planning to come.  Jess said she enlisted the help of our mutual friend Carragh, who happens to own a cake decorating business, so I am excited to see what pretty, amazing confectionery delights they come up with!
• We have been wanting to get a nice set of patio furniture for years now, and just haven't gotten around to it.  I was hoping to get some in time for the shower, and found the perfect set, but won't be able to pick it up until next Wednesday.
• I am almost finished cleaning our office/craft room so we can convert it to Austin's new bedroom.  We have company coming from Iowa at the end of the month, so I need to have it all done by then.  After they leave we will paint it and move him over.
• I'm still not sure what to do for Father's Day.  Dustin loves to hike, so we will probably do something outdoors. 
• Our dish washer started making a funny noise a couple of days ago.  We just bought the thing a couple of years ago, so it's still relatively new, enough so that it should not be making noises yet.  Dustin took off the bottom spinner thingy and it was FULL of calcium deposit.  The water here is so terrible and hard on appliances.  If I knew when we moved in what I know now I would have had a water softener installed because the water here is so damaging to appliances.  I am going to try one more cycle of vinegar to help clear it out and hopefully it will take care of the rattle. 
• My friend Amanda finally had her newest little baby, a third boy.  Her cousin put on Facebook that the name was Zebadia, to which I thought "what kind of a name is that!"  I know that she is very traditional and into strong names, so it seemed like an odd fit to me.  The only thing I could figure was maybe her Marine husband had a colleague who died that had that name. When I looked it up the name actually is Biblical, but when Amanda finally posted the official news his name is actually Jedidiah. 
• I think I have decided that I want to stop working on July 26, provided Katy doesn't decide to come sooner, which means I have 24 days of work left!

Dentist Take #2

We went to the Pediatric Dentist today for Austin's second visit.  I took him about 7 months ago for the first time.  He was definitely way more confident now and was a great little patient.  Last time he wouldn't even consider the x-ray chair, and today he hopped up like it was no big deal.  Last time he did ok with the hygenist, but sat up instead of laid down.  Today he laid happily in on the table and watched Robin Hood on the ceiling screen.  Last time I had to hold him in my lap while the dentist did the exam and even had to hold him down for a bit, but today he laid back and let the dentist take as much time to examine as he needed.  It was really great to see the difference in his maturity level.

All of his teeth were great, no problems.  The dentist complimented on how different his teeth were since after the last visit when he recommended then that we take away the binky, and we did and it really allowed his teeth to line up.  He said he thinks it's a great recovery and he will have no long term effects from the binky use.  He said the x-rays showed the permanent teeth are coming in nicely and will be large, so he will likely have some crowding at first until his jaw grows bigger. 

Thursday rambling

Baby #2 Updates:

• I am 28 weeks, 5 days now. 
• My next OB appointment is June 6.  I hoped and planned to go with my friend Britt since we are both going to the same OB (80 mile drive) and our schedules have been off until now since she is on her weekly appointments.  But, she is already having some contractions and making progress, so I'm doubting she will still be pregnant by then even though her due date is June 15.
• My physical therapy has really been helping my hip pain and they cut me back to one session per week.  I am also sleeping with a pillow under my bump now for support which helps immensely.
• Still no name, still working on it!
• My friend Jess is planning a shower for me tentatively the weekend of June 16/17.
• I ordered some fun new summer maternity tops last night.  Motherhood Maternity was having a sale, that for clearance items it was BOGO and other tops were buy 3, get the 4th free, so I ordered 6 new tops. 

Austin Updates:

• Austin is 3 years, 4 months now. 
• He is still full of energy and always keeping us on our toes.
• He has been extremely stubborn and opinionated lately, gee I wonder where he gets that from? Some days he drives me crazy!
• At the same time sometimes he can be mild and well behaved, I can never predict how he will be though, it's anyone's guess.
• He still has certain words/terms for things even if we tell him the right way to say something.  Like my Mom is always "Papa" which she is okay with since I think she finds in endearing in light that my Dad passed away so she is Grandma and Papa.  He can totally say the word Grandma, and we always tell him that she is Grandma, but he calls her Papa.  For candy he says something between "can-can" and "tin-tin", and suckers are "Popsicles" which I think he associated with the word lollipop. 
• He loves pretend play right now.  He is always pretending to be a doggy.  Sometimes he will be a kitty, bird or froggy, but mostly sticks with doggy- my poor deprived pet-less boy!
• He loves to play games and is really into Candyland now.  He also loves Mario Kart Wii, and is really getting very good at it now, like scary good for a 3 year old. 
• His transition to big boy bed went way better than we ever anticipated.  He loves it and sleeps well in it.  He seems to not grasp that he can get up on his own because when he wakes up he always calls for us to come and get him.  I'm okay with that though because I don't have to worry about him wandering the house alone, or trying to come in our room and get into bed with us.  The only down side is he wakes me up to take him to the bathroom, but it's really not that big of a deal to me. 

Other life updates:

• We missed out on another job.  This time it was a BLM job in Buffalo, WY.  Dustin interviewed for it, but it was kind of advertised funny, so we wondered if they already had a person in mind for it. 
• We are still looking forward to applying for the Fort Collins Forest Service job, and are now kind of hoping the announcement is delayed a couple more weeks so he wouldn't have to start until after the baby is born in case he gets it.  They actually posted the call for applications, but then pulled it back down as they said there was some problem with how they did it.  We still haven't seen the revised announcement.
• The nice thing about knowing about the Buffalo job is now I can move forward with preparing for the arrival of the baby.  I have been in a little bit of limbo since packing to move and packing up a room for storage means different strategies.  We will be in our current location until at least after she is born so I can proceed with readying our office room for Austin and transforming his current room back into a nursery.
• I am about half way through my current book club book A Prayer for Owen Meany.  I read it back in high school, but it's fun to reread it. 

Questions for Austin

My bloggy friends at The Life of a New Mommy, The Trigstad Family, and  Our Little Corner did this survey of questions with their 3 year olds and plan to ask the same questions every year to compare how the answers change.

Questions for Austin at age 3:

1. What is your favorite color? Green
2. What is your favorite toy? Diego on computer
3. What is your favorite fruit?  Mango
4. What is your favorite show?  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? Cheeseburger
6. What is your favorite thing to wear?  Dinosaur shirt
7. What is your favorite game?  Wii boxing
8. What is your favorite snack?  Ice cream, fruit snacks
9. What is your favorite animal?  Monkeys
10. What is your favorite song?  Raffi songs, Numbers Rhumba
11. What is your favorite story?  The Very Hungry Catepillar
12. Who is your best friend?  Foster
13. What is your favorite cereal?  Mini Wheats
14. What do you like to do when you go outside?  Play in powerwheels
15. What is your favorite drink?  Juice
16. What is your favorite holiday?  Halloween
17. What do you like to take to bed with you? Doggy, duckies 
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  Eggs
19. What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner?  Cheeseburger
20. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Bigger (We haven't really talked about this so I'm not sure he understands yet that we have a career when we grow up)

Everything but the tournament

I just got back from our trip last night and am back at the old grind today.  It seems like I have been away from my blog for an eternity instead of 7 days.  I have been reading through my blogs and trying to catch up, but everyone else in bloggy land has been so busy the last week it's taking me a while to catch up!

I wanted to share about my trip except for the wrestling tournament because I can do a whole post on that alone with pictures, so I will try to do that tonight. Overall it was great, we had good weather and the roads were passable.  We got to see a lot of family and achieved our work goals in the process.

For Valentine's Day we drove to Grand Junction, so spent most of the day in the truck.  We got there and got checked in, then went to dinner at Johnny Carino's.  When I was in college that place was a lot nicer and more formal, but it has really become family orriented like Olive Garden, which was ok since we had Austin with us and it was not really a romantic one-on-one date. 

I went to the Tamarisk Symposium for my work on Wednesday while Dustin entertained Austin.  We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner that night which was so yummy!   Feb. 15 is the anniversary of when we got together, so we have now been together nine years!

Thursday we drove to Denver and attended the wrestling tournament.  It went through Friday, so I will skip to Saturday.  My Mom, sister, Austin and I went shopping on Saturday and it was so nice to go and have a little spree.  Austin needed new shoes, I bought him 3 pairs since they were on a great sale.  I also got myself a new pillow and some clothes for Austin.

Sunday was pretty uneventful, we went to church with my Mom and she wanted to sit in the very front of church, which if you are a parent of a three year old, you know that presents a great deal of effort to keep them in control in front of the entire congregation!  My sister came down and we hung out and watched movies.  Dustin drove in that night and we drove home yesterday.

Thoughts for Friday

I thought about doing 5QF, but I'm just not in the mood, so here are some thoughts instead:

• I worked an 11 hour day yesterday because I had a meeting 75 miles away.  It was a sit down and listen all day kind of meeting so I was spent.
• I just filled up our truck and it took 25.2 gallons, YIKES!  I know a lot of gas stations cut you off at $75 when paying at the pump, but luckily the station out here does not.
• I usually have a 3 day weekend since I stay home to have a Mommy day with Austin on Mondays, but since we are taking our trip next week I decided to work on Monday.  I hope I am super motivated to get a lot done this weekend around the house.
• While I was in the big city yesterday I got to go to a Japanese restaurant for lunch.  I have really been into California rolls and hibachi cooking lately.  Too bad there is not a closer restaurant! 
• I also needed a sugar pick-me-up in the afternoon to get me through the last presentation so I treated myself to a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory carmel apple, yummy!  I also got one for Dustin and Austin and Austin devoured it!  I only wanted to give him half the apple since his was not only caramel, but then dipped in mini-M&Ms so I didn't want him to have a bunch of chocolate before bed.  I should have not left the other half in a reachable place on the counter because he went in there and snatched aonther piece of it when I wasn't looking.
• Speaking of bed, the night before last Austin had trouble sleeping.  He didn't fall asleep until after 10:30pm, which he never stays awake that late, then woke up at 5:30am to use the restroom.  I think he seems to have trouble sleeping when there is a full moon.  I don't know if it's the light that comes in or what.  He has a black-out shade on his window, so it can't be that much light.  At least he slept good last night.
• Did I mention that I am so ready to visit Colorado?  We were just there last November, but I just thrive on these trips and am really excited to be there.  I hope my nephew does well in the regional wrestling tournament this weekend and qualifies for state so we can watch him next weekend.
• I started researching birth doulas.  One of my BFFs is a doula, but she lives on the other side of the country.  Since she has educated me about them I am interested in possibly working with one when I have this baby if the doctor decides I am a VBAC candidate.  In case you don't know a doula is like a personal assistant to a woman while she is laboring.  They know about all aspects of the process and make suggestions to help you and your partner get through the process in the best way, ideally with no medical interventions like pain killers and induction medications.  What I started to find though was a lot of them encourage homebirths and completely natural births and I am concerned that I would want one who is not so anti-medicine that I feel pressured if I do opt for drugs during the process.  I of course will absolutely need to labor in the hospital since there is an increased risk of rupture.  I think I will ask my doctor about it during my next visit.
• I think my bump is becoming a little more pronounced.  It's still not that big yet though because yesterday at the meeting when our attorney saw me she asked if I was feeling ok since I looked thin.  I was thinking "what?" and told her I was surprised she said that since I am 13 weeks pregnant. I had a little sweater/jacket on and I think the style was slimming.

Recent photos

Opening family gifts on his birthday.

We went to the horse barn with Dad on Sunday to feed the Forest Service horses.

He was being so photogenic, I wish I could have taken off his hat, but his hair was totally sticking every direction.

I really love this one, again I wish the hat was off.

He loves his "spoonman" Spider Man hat.

He rode Dillon for the first time.  He has been on a horse before, but only standing still.  Dad gave me the lead rope and I walked him around the pen about 8-9 times while Dad spotted Austin.  He LOVED it!

The boys playing Rock Band/Guitar Hero

Austin 3.0

I did a post like this when Austin was 2 and a half so I thought I would do another.  I know I'm a few days late, but for the record here is a snapshot of what Austin is up too:

• He is such an active kid and always on the go unless he is asleep.  He LOVES physical activity and playing outdoors.  We had to ban playing our Wii boxing game because he was so into it that he wanted to "boom, boom" everyone in sight.  
• He has completely mastered talking, it's like he went from saying not much of anything to speaking in sentences.  I think I remember reading that Albert Einstein did that, so maybe that is a good sign.  
• Sometimes he says funny things. I of course am not going to remember every one, but 
• he always says "Love you too Mom" or "Love you too Dad" even if we haven't said it first.  
• He got a tricycle for Christmas, but he says "I'm gonna go ride my bike."
• All fish are "Nemo" and Lightning McQueen is "Cars."
• He is into emotions, mostly happy and sad.  He will say "you happy Mommy?"  Sometimes he will tell me what to be and go back and forth wanting me to smile then frown, smile then frown.  Lately too when we are disciplining him and using a stern voice he will innocently say "Be happy Mommy" or "Be happy Daddy."
• He is 100% daytime potty trained and has been so since early September.  He is dry most nights, but since I am a slacker and he is still in the crib we still put him in a pullup.  I think once we get him in a bed he will be 100% potty trained all the time.
• He still loves to read and will be set on a certain book for a period of time.  We always read before nap and bed and he will have his certain book that he has to read every night for weeks to months.  He will read others too, but there is always the one.  At least I get good with my memorization and can usually recite the book by the time he moves on to his next favorite.
• For sleeping he still has his ducks- Lovee, Ming, Ming and Trey.  Last night when I went to tuck him in he grabbed two of the ducks and looks at me and says "where's another one?"  Yes, he has to have all three!  He also sleeps with three penguins- Bo Penguin, Coke, and Buca.  He has one pound kitty that was Dustin's as a kid, and the doggie Dustin gave him in the hospital. Lately he has wanted his Scout Dog to stand guard at the end of his bed.  And he has a mini-dog pillow pet.
• He sings now and it's very cute.  He is great at singing the alphabet song.  I would like to say that I think his favorite song is a kiddy song, but honestly it is Soungarden's "Spoonman".  He always asks Daddy to play the video on the computer and any time we play Rock Band he wants "Spoonman."  He sings parts of it too which is way fun.  He has two Spiderman stocking caps and for a while he would ask for his "spoonman hat."  He loves Raffi music and will sing along to some of those songs, with his favorite being "bathtime." 
• He can count to about 14 now without any help and counts everything.
• He still loves to play puzzles and got several for his birthday.  He does about 20-25 piece puzzles with help.  He loves his power wheels and does a good job at maneuvering them.  He is loving his Leapster2 that Uncle Doug's kids passed along to him.  He has an I Spy Treasure game and he got a Go Diego Go Adventure game for his birthday.
• He is not much a milk drinker, which drives me crazy.  Everyone in my family are huge milk drinkers, so it baffles me how he doesn't love it too.  At least he likes yogurt and cheese, and we give him a gummy calcium supplement just in case.
• He is wearing size 3T-4T shirts and 3T pants.  Size 9 for shoes, but I think moving to 10 soon.
  

3rd Birthday Bash

Austin’s birthday party was today and it was a lot of fun!  The weather did not cooperate, but it is January so we knew that it was a long shot.  We had nine kids attend, three of which were here briefly and had other engagements. 

I was pleased with the way the cake turned out.  I hoped to finish it last night, but had a bought of “morning sickness” last night.  I did not throw up, but felt like I was going to.  So I finished the cake today.  I also made a bunch of cupcakes which were more popular last year, but this year the kids were more into the cake.  I didn’t get an up close picture with the candles, but I got a Cars set that had a Mater, a McQueen and a Piston Cup candle.

The kids had a blast playing with the balloons that Dustin blew up and were all over the living room floor.
We ate some pizza for lunch.

The kids were itching to go outside and play, and it was drizzling so we thought, oh well, it can’t be that bad right?  So the kids went out, then the rain opened up and it poured.

Then we did a pinata while the kids were outside.  It was the toughest pinata I have ever seen.  We had the kids take three hits and went up by age.  We had to go through three rounds before they barely broke it enough to get the candy out.

After the pinata is actually when we did the cake, I just put the pictures out of order.  After the cake the kids played "tractor tippin’”.  I printed out pictures of the tractors from the movie Cars and taped them to water bottles.  Then the kids had to make a honking noise and bowl a ball and knock over the tractors. 

We wrapped up the day by having Austin open presents.  He was getting tired by this point so he was a little apprehensive at first.  He eventually go into it and he got a BUNCH of cool gifts.

All in all it was a great party and fun way to celebrate another year with our awesome little man!

It's my party and I'll cry if Mommy comes!

Today I went to surprise Austin at the Learning Center by visiting for afternoon snack and brought birthday cupcakes for all his buddies.  I had such high hopes that it would be this great experience and a totally fun time.  NOT SO MUCH!  When I walked in the door Austin and his buddy F, pictured above, got excited and ran to get their coats.  Usually when I walk in it's time to drive them home and so they naturally thought it was time to go.  I told them to hang their coats back up, that it was not time to go, but we were going to have cupcakes. Austin cries "I don't want cupcakes, I go home!"

I hugged him and he burried his face into my shoulder and sobbed "I go home, I go home"  We stayed like that for a while as the class gathered for rug time with a story and singing some songs.  The story got F's mind off leaving so he stopped crying, but Austin continued to hug me and cry.  After they sang a couple of songs he was finally ready to toughen up and join the group.  They sang him happy birthday, then another birthday song, and then for he's a jolly good fellow. 

He then led the class into the snack room where they had a piece of cheese and an orange and a half a cup of juice for each person.  The kids washed their hands and sat down and I passed out the cupcakes.  From there it was fun and I think Austin enjoyed having me there.  After snack it was toy time, so Austin ran off with no problems, but F still wanted to leave with me.  I felt so bad!

Photo shoot with my new camera

I got a new Canon T3i for Christmas and on Sunday we headed to Zion National Park to test it out.

What a fun camera!  I have just hit the tip of the iceberg on how to use it and need to learn a lot more.  It has so many sophisticated features.  So far my favorite is the multiple shot features.  When you are snapping photos you can hold down the shutter button and it will fire multiple pictures until you release the button.  It also has a timed multiple feature where you can set it, have a 10 second timer, and then it shoots a series of up to 10 photos.  Both ways it really helps you catch that second of a perfect smile or expression.  It also has a super fast response time when you hit the button which is such an improvement over my last camera. 

While we were there we saw two cool interactions with nature.  The first I did not get a picture of as there were desert big horn sheep walking along the road as we drove into Zion.  While on our hike we watched these deer pictured above.  The first one walked up to the river and I said “oh look, she is going to take a drink” and then she proceeded to walk straight into the water and across the river followed by the other two. 

Is it too late?

Is it too late to talk about New Years weekend?  I know I’m behind, it’s a combo of being busy and being in a bit of an emotional funk.  I’m ok, but you know sometimes life just gets you a little down and instead of being a negative nelly on here it was just easier to take a break from posting.  So if it’s not too late, we had a great weekend in Phoenix with my brother and his three kids.
They decided to pass down their power wheels to Austin, but the twins had fun taking them for one last spin while teaching their cousin how to drive.

Look out world, here I come!  He was really a natural and picked it up fast.

Austin came home with the yellow Hummer and the blue Jeep.

That night we watched the new Smurf movie and ate a ton of popcorn.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about Austin staying up to midnight, but didn’t know how it would be with the older kids there, so we just played it by ear.  At about 9:45pm he was so wound up and running laps around my brother’s house, so we decided it was time to take him to bed kicking and screaming.  Turns out everyone went to bed shortly after that and no one stayed up to midnight.
New Years Day we soaked up some sun at the local park.



Then we went home for lunch and a nap.  After Austin woke up we went to a timeshare resort that my brother is an owner at so that we could go swimming.  He has a pool in his back yard, but doesn’t have a heater yet since they just moved in last year.  I didn’t get a photos at the resort, but we all had a lot of fun swimming.  We dried off and then went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo and it was fabulous!  I love family style dining where you get to try a little of this and a little of that.  We also splurged and got a brownie sunday that was served in a huge martini glass.  This isn’t my photo, but you get the idea.

When the waitress brought out the dessert there was the one cherry on top like in the picture.  One of the four kids goes “who gets the cherry?”  Before we could really resolve the issue the waitress came back with a bowl full of cherries, like seriously 20-30 cherries.  We all were able to eat our fill along with the brownies, ice cream and topping goodness.  What a treat and a really great way to ring in the new year!